In May 1973, four months after the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade on January 22, 1973, civil rights leader Jesse Jackson spoke to JET magazine about abortion in the Black community. His remarks were direct and extensive.
“Abortion is genocide. If people use preventive measures to stop the life process from originating, I can buy that. But if they get carried enough away to set the baby in process, they must get carried enough away to accept the responsibility of the baby. And I don’t want to hear this bit about babies not really living until the baby has a face and the doctor smacks it and it cries. Anything growing is living. If you got the thrill to set the baby in motion and you don’t have the will to protect it, you’re dishonest. But you don’t try to stop reproducing and procreating human life at its best. For who knows the cure for cancer won’t come out of some mind of some Black child?”
Jackson, Jesse. Interview. JET, 6 Sept. 1973, p. 16.
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